Archive for October, 2012

Perhaps you’ve heard that the end of the world is barreling towards New York City in the form of a hurricane called Sandy and a nor’easter which for some reason is nameless. What’s a funny name to go with Sandy? I will think about this.

Anyway, you might be thinking to yourself (no, you’re not, I know, but play along), what is Maggie doing to prepare for this hurricane? Here’s what’s going on:

Yesterday I went to four grocery stores. I couldn’t find the beans I needed for a recipe. I would say they were more crowded than usual, but the lines were not insane.

This lady was behind me at grocery store #4.

What do I decide is necessary for a storm?

Beer, ice cream, and supplies to make chili beans.

I went to kickboxing this morning, I figured before I was stuck at home indefinitely I should at least move a little. I was one of about five people in my class.

Where was everyone else?

Waiting in line to GET INTO the grocery store. Where they presumably then had fight people for the last loaves of bread and then wait in a long line to check out.

I stopped at a bodega to buy mixers for drinks (priorities) and waited on a long line to check out, most people were buying beer (wrong decision people, if we lose power you don’t want to be opening and closing the refrigerator and maybe you like warm beer, but no, red wine or mixed drinks are best).

Important things:

I have made a pot of beans.

I have also made blondies.

And now I am sipping on a lovely dark and stormy.

You might be able to tell that I’m not really worried. I am so excited to be at home tomorrow and not be able to go anywhere. I literally can’t do anything and it’s fabulous. My office is obviously closed and has no plans to reopen until mass transit it back up and running, which doesn’t look like it’s going to happen until Wednesday.

But then I read this article and got slightly freaked out. Just give me power and I’ll be happy. But I have flashlights and batteries and I’m obsessively charging every device.

What’s true and not true in Argo (I wouldn’t read it you haven’t seen the movie. But see the movie, it’s great!)

I’m pretending I don’t care about the election, but I actually obsessively check FiveThirtyEight every day. I like that it’s just numbers, I like that it’s non-partisan, and I like that he says Obama is going to win 🙂

Eat Live Run turkey chili. I love this chili, probably the best turkey chili I’ve ever had. The wine really gives it a nice depth and the spiciness is perfect. I’ve been looking forward to eating this for dinner all week.

Cheese Enchiladas with Red Chile Sauce. I like this, but there’s also something weird about it. The serving size is fairly small, there’s a lot of cheese and not that much beans. and mine is so much thinner than the picture. But it tastes good and warms up well in the microwave so it’s not a bad lunch.

This is a little bit of deeper post than I normally write. There’s this thing I like to do, it’s like comparing myself to others, except on a macro level. Yes, I look at other women’s arms or hair or whatever and think how I’d love to have them, but I don’t think that while putting myself down. I guess that’s the implication of my thought, but that’s not how the thought forms in my mind.

Thought steps:

1. See a woman with arms I envy (I really, really, really want muscular arms)
2. Think “god, I would love to have her arms”
3. Tell myself that one day I will have arms like that
4. Go home and flex my arm muscles in front of the mirror for a few minutes deciding how far away I am
5. Decide I’m on my way, thank you kickboxing

And that’s pretty much how it goes. I guess it’s not good to compare myself to others in that way, but I also don’t think it’s a terrible thought process.

But that’s not what I view as my worst habit. My worst habit is looking at someone’s life and naming all of the good things that they have in their life and comparing them to how bad those same things are in my life. This especially comes up when someone complains about something.

Example:

1. A friend complains about what long hours she works at her job.
2. I commiserate with her, but really I’m thinking “why is she complaining everything else in her life is great she has a wonderful boyfriend, great best friends she’s had for years, she’s really close to her family, plus a thousand other things I don’t have”

I don’t necessarily feel like I’m doing a great job at explaining this, but basically it comes down to my thinking that everyone else as at least ONE good thing in their life and I often feel like I have none. I’m single, I don’t have a great group of friends, I love my family but we’re not very close and even if I wanted to be close to my family there are a lot of issues there which make it a very challenging family, I don’t love my job, I don’t love my living situation, I don’t make a lot of money. I honestly have a difficult time finding one good area of my life.

That all being said, I don’t feel sad or desperate. I am, thankfully, an eternal optimist and I do believe I will have good things in my life one day. And I hope that I am currently taking some steps to get there. But in the meantime I know I need to stop comparing the larger parts of my life to other people because it’s not healthy and it just makes me resent my friends, which is a terrible thing. If only it were easy to stop.

1. Goats in jackets. I don’t know why this picture makes me so happy, but it really, really, really does. I’ve looked at it a bunch of times since I took it on Saturday and every time it just makes me smile and gives me a happy feeling. I wish it was a better picture so I could frame it. I even made it the background of my work computer.

2. Generosity. I mentioned that I had a lovely dinner at my friend/colleague Erica’s parents’ house on Friday night. And her parents are just so kind. Her mother left Halloween candy on my bed, was so attentive to me at dinner, and offered me Challah bread to take home. Plus she left us a lovely spread for breakfast on Saturday morning. Additionally, my roommate Grace graciously (see what I did there?) let me use a leftover bottle of red wine from her birthday party in my chili recipe and she gave me one of her bananas on Sunday morning so I didn’t have to run out and buy one. Kindness, it goes a long way.

3. Fall. I am bad for recycling more Sheep and Wool pictures? Whatever. Although fall keeps teasing us with its appearance here in NYC, I totally love it. The changing leaves, the wearing tights with dresses, the apples, and the pumpkin beer. And I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting…

On Friday night I headed up to White Plains with my friend Erica to stay at her parents’ house. While I think her parents are great, and her mother made us a delicious dinner, the purpose of our trip was that we could leave from her parents’, rather than from the City, to make it up to the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY.

We left right before 7am and the fog was out of control. You take pretty narrow and windy roads to get up there so it was a little creepy.

By the time we got up to Rhinebeck the weather was amazing. It was warm, but not too hot, and sunny. The leaves looked amazing.

The deal was that we had to work at our company’s booth from 8:30am to until 2:30pm with an hour break for lunch. I’ll break down all (and I mean ALL) the food we ate in my What I Ate Wednesday post this week, so here are some other pictorial highlights.

The very long line we had to wait on for lunch. It surprisingly only took about 15 minutes.

Our lamb cooking away.

This is a terrible picture, but there’s a lot of sheep shearing going on at the festival and then they sell these giant bags of fleece.

This was, obviously, the best goat at the festival. My friend was like how do you know it’s the best? And I asked if she saw any other goats wearing floral jackets? No? Then I think the answer is clear.

Sheep cuddling. I kept telling them I ate their cousins for lunch. I am a completely unashamed carnivore.

I love that 4-H has such a large presence. I was in 4-H (for horses) when I was a kid.

I never waited on a line to go to the bathroom, but I did wait on this line to wash my hands. WTF?

The absolute best apple crisp I’ve ever had.

It was a great day, but so exhausting. I wasn’t up any earlier than I normally am (6:30am), but standing on my feet all day, on concrete, and talking to people, just knocked me out. I got back to my apartment around 8pm and immediately headed out to dinner. And around 10pm I was like sorry, I’m tired, I need to go home. I think I was passed out by 10:30pm.

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I'm a 27 year old who lives in NYC and works in publishing. After struggling with health and fitness for years, I feel I've finally found a way to live my life to its fullest. Read about my adventures in NYC and everywhere else, with a focus on trying to eat healthy and exercise.

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